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Free Content (some requires registration)

(Most of this content requires a Free registration, or else  login.  Members also get to download the videos)
TitleDescription
“WordPress Quick Start” GuideAn in-depth, 30 page tutorial on creating a WordPress site — your first site in 3-4 hours from start to finish!
WordPress website in 1 hour webinar recording-Starting from an empty hosting account we built a functional and attractive professional service website for Sally’s beauty salon!  !We covered how to:

  • Install WordPress from a cPanel hosting account
  • Configure WordPress for a “mixed site” (static home page + blog)
  • Use the Visual Editor to create pages
  • Install a custom banner
  • Setup navigation bar and sidebar
  • Configure and install a free mailing list / autoresponder system
  • Changing default colors and fonts
  • And more…
WordPress SEO with Justin Popovic Replay of the webinar on WordPress SEO that took place July 18 with Justin Popovic,success coach, SEO expert and internet entrepreneur

  • On page optimization essentials with WordPress
  • Content as a primary SEO strategy
  • Off page SEO = success
  • Recommended plugins for Best SEO results
Free Thesis Theme clone (based on Atahualpa)Atahualpa is a powerful, and free WordPress Theme framework.  Thesis is a powerful commercial theme framework.  This article describes a quick way to style an Atahualpa theme to a Thesis look-and-feel
How to find a good WordPress theme for your business or professional websiteChoosing a good theme for a business or professional website is a challenging job.  This article covers your top choices and strategy.
Migrating to Google Apps, Gmail and Insight.ly project management & CRM systemIt is now possible to have Google serve your mail@yourdomain.com, giving you secure and very powerful email management (for free), and Insight.ly is a free, very intuitive but powerful contact management, project management and CRM system.  It has changed the way I do business which is why I am such a fan.  If you are still on Outlook folders and Tasks, you should consider an upgrade (seriously).  If you keep your mail on your computer, vulnerable to hard-drive failure and viruses, you should consider an upgrade (with Gmail you get the best of both worlds, host-side email storage and client-side management via IMAP).

 

Member Content

Fall 2011 “WordPress for Business” course

LinkContent
Core lecture

Supplementary content

  • Introduction [0:00]
  • Agenda [3:55]
  • How the course works (how to get the most of it) [6:07]
  • Tour of the WordPress Academy member’s area (support instructions, support forum, downloading themes, photos etc) [10:30]
  • Hosting, domain, email issues
    • Understand self-hosted WordPress (vs. WordPress.com) [22:10]
    • How to register a domain, keep separate domain registrar and hosting [22:50]
    • Doing a domain transfer-in at Godaddy (for an existing domain that you own in a different registrar) [25:00]
    • Registering a new domain and assigning name servers during registration at Godaddy [26:55]
    • Changing name servers for an existing domain held in Godaddy [30:00]
    • Choosing a web hosting company – getting hosting from WordPress Academy, Bluehost, Hostgator [32:20]
    • Using cPanel-style hosts – installing WordPress on a primary or add-on domain [37:59]
    • Creating an add-on domain in cPanel [43:05]
    • Creating an email forwarder in cPanel [49:10]
    • How to setup Google Apps / Gmail on your domains [50:54]
  • WordPress — What and Why [55:45]
  • WordPress site layout — basic screen blocks [63:25]
  • Getting into the dashboard, tour of the dashboard, WordPress data elements (Posts, Pages, Links)  [65:50]
  • Adding Pages [66:30]
  • Adding / Editing Posts [68:23]
  • Deleting Links [69:30]
  • Difference between a Blog, Static site, and Mixed site; configuring WordPress for a static site [70:25]
  • Creating a menu [76:33]
  • Removing comment box from home page; activating command windows; removing home page title “Home”  [79:07]
  • Installing & activating themes (either from WordPress.org or from a commercial theme zipfile)  [82:00]
  • Installing a plugin (both free ones and commercial ones); using My Link Order (example plugin)  [87:03]
  • Sidebars, widget areas, widgets [89:25]
  • Using My Link Order plugin & widget to show Links on your sidebar [94:14]
Core Lecture

Supplementary content

 

  • Intro [0:00]
  • Course feedback [0:30]
  • Supplementary content locations & other housekeeping [2:30]
  • Plugins – use sparingly [4:30]
  • Class 1 Agenda [5:50]
  • Comment spam & Akismet [10:00]
  • Installing WordPress on Hostgator hosting (review) [11:15]
  • Blog, static site, mixed site configuration (review) [13:15]
  • Removing comment box on home page (review) [15:20]
  • Installing & activating themes — free theme or commercial theme (review] [17:00]
  • Installing & configuring  TinyMCE advanced visual editor [19:15]
  • TinyMCE( advanced visual editor)
    • Using TinyMCE [22:20]
    • Paste plain-text and Paste-from-Word [24:25]
    • Cleaning up your text in HTML [26:10]
    • Hyperlinks  (to external site or internal page) [27:00]
    • Heading levels (use them) [28:09]
    • Horizontal rule, and applying CSS style [31:30]
  • Tables  [32:20]
  • Anchor links [35:15]
  • Alternate ways of creating your content (other than the Visual Editor) [37:40]
  • WordPress Settings menu: Permalinks (important), Comment Moderation, Privacy, hiding a development site with “Maintenance mode” plugin [39:48]
  • Activating Akismet for comment-spam [42:50]
  • Images and the Media Library; image sizes; image alignment; browser scaling; image hyperlink [44:00]
  • WordPress built-in graphics editor (scale & crop) [51:35]
  • Putting images in a row (inside a table) [53:42]
  • Create a section break for floating images using inline CSS  (to start text below the image) [56:32]
  • Using Featured Images on your posts (thumbnail images) [60:33]
  • Blog pages layout, Read-more tag  [64:42]
  • Post categories, changing default post category, creating multiple blog pages (or “posts by category”) [67:43]
  • Widgets & widget areas (review) [74:00]
  • Menu & navigation bar setup  for posts-by-category [76:18]
  • Menus: creating drop-downs and non-clickable top-level navigation links [78:45]
  • Creating a secondary menu for post categories [81:00]
  • The all-important Text widget (putting arbitrary text and html into your sidebar), adding an image your sidebar  [83:11]
  • User menu [88:58]
  • Import/Export (from WordPress.com, Blogger, RSS, etc) [90:10]
  • Windows Live Writer [91:30]
  • Using Windows Live Writer as an html editor with built-in image management [97:44]
  • File Transfer Protocol (FTP), using Filezilla, finding your website root directory, uploading files for public visibility  [99:40]
  • Installing or updating plugins and themes manually with FTP [107:30]
  • Recommended graphic design sources & image editors (Gimp and Pixlr.com) [112:25]

 

Core Lecture:

Supplementary Content

  • Restoring a backup from WP-DB-Backup (free)
  • Restoring a backup from IDrive (free)

 

 

 

  • Course summary until now — what we’ve learned [0:00]
  • WordPress Academy’s Learning Management System [1:50]
  • Class 3 & 4 Agenda [3:02]
  • WordPress Backup utilities & Security summary (WP-DB-BACKUP and IDRIVE plugins) [4:35]
  • Posting PDF’s to your media library for download [14:38]
  • Posting audios (use Audio Player plugin) [14:43]
  • Downloading videos and audios, even when copy protected (Internet Download Manager plugin for Firefox) [24:25]
  • Posting a Youtube video via embed code [25:30]
  • About Iframes [29:37]
  • Posting a private video (use JWPlayer plugin or FV Flowplayer) [30:40]
  • Theme demos — introduction — recommend you use one of suggested themes [41:15]
  • Weaver theme demo
    • Installing Weaver [45:15]
    • Weaver intro [46:17]
    • Weaver theme options [48:14]
    • Theme width & header height [50:28]
    • Putting a header image [51:25]
    • Suppressing site title & description [53:35]
    • Changing navbar background color (hex color codes), base fonts, footer customization, etc [54:44]
    • Static & mixed site configuration (review), remove comment box, suppress page title on home page [58:48]
    • Weaver pages templates, changing sidebar location, suppressing sidebar with page templates, adding custom sidebars [62:00]
    • About widget areas, finding widget area locations [67:12]
    • About custom widget areas [69:05]
    • CSS Inserts and when you need them; writing your first CSS class; applying CSS class to text [70:00]
  • StudioPress demo (Part 1)
    • Installing StudioPress (always install the Genesis parent theme framework first, then the child theme) [76:10]
    • StudioPress themes intro [78:05]
    • Corporate theme demo [80:25]
    • Need to set your site as a blog to activate home page widget areas (StudioPress unusual feature) [81:33]]
    • Populating widget areas; using Genesis Featured Page widget [83:00]
  • (to be continued next class)
Core Lecture

 

  • Agenda [0:00]
  • Why these themes [1:30]
  • Resuming StudioPress demo
    • Review [8:18]
    • Featured images in “Middle #1, #2, #3″ widget areas [9:20]
    • Footer widget areas [15:28]
    • Home page top [19:48]
    • Genesis theme settings, default layout & per-page overrides [24:54]
    • Updating the header in Corporate theme [29:25]
    • Genesis Simple Sidebar (custom sidebars per page), Simple Header (easily add header), and Simple Edits (post/page options & footer) [31:53]
    • Genesis Simple Hooks (inserting PHP & HTML into your theme), Dynamic Content Gallery (image and post slider) [39:25]
  • Thesis theme demo
    • Installing Thesis [52:30]
    • Renaming “custom-sample” folder in FTP [54:41]
    • Design options, site layout, changing side width and sidebar layout [56:22]
    • Changing fonts and colors [59:00]
    • Putting a video from Youtube into the Multimedia box [60:52]
    • Thesis OpenHook plugin [63:40]
    • Thesis summary [67:40]
  • WooThemes “Canvas” demo
    • Installing Canvas theme [68:44]
    • Canvas theme review; the Woo Tabs widget; Image gallery page template; Magazine layout vs. Business layout; Theme shortcodes; etc [69:30]
    • Loading the header image; sidebar manager; page templates [75:30]
    • Woothemes summary [80:45]
  • Elegant themes demo
    • Installing “Magnificent” [82:55]
    • ElegantThemes review [84:00]
    • Home page slider configuration [87:30]
    • Layouts & widget areas [89:30]
Core Lecture

 

 

  • Class 5 agenda [0:00]
  • Course Summary [1:57]
  • Outsourcing (Basics) [4:03]
  • Outsourcing (Practical) [6:38]
  • iFrames & Facebook fan pages
    • Intro to Facebook fan pages[14:29]
    • Facebook iFrame App; creating a page; creating a Welcome tab in your fan page with an email signup box [16:20]
    • Making the Welcome tab the default landing page for new users [27:45]
  • HTML introduction
    • How to learn HTML [34:10]
    • HTML Cheat Sheet [39:09]
  • CSS introduction
    • Introduction [42:50]
    • Applying CSS to your HTML (4 ways) [45:13]
    • Practice on a WordPress page (see below for error correction #1) [48:09]
    • Applying CSS in StudioPress and simple themes (Edit the stylesheet) (see error correction #2) [55:40]
    • Applying CSS in Weaver and other themes that provide a “CSS Inserts” area [61:40]
    • CSS Syntax: Selector, Property, Value [65:45]
    • CSS Box Model (Margin, Border, Padding) [68:20]
    • CSS Cheat Sheet [74:59]
    • Summary [78:00]
  • Using Firebug (HTML / CSS inspection & debugging tool) + Practice [79:47]
Core Lecture

Supplementary Content

  • Advanced single-page and single-post SEO (using the paid Easy WP SEO)
  • Class 6 Agenda Part 1 [0:00]
  • SEO Case Study: Marc Beneteau, Camtasia Consultant [1:50]
  • Class 6 Agenda Part 2 [3:56]
  • Google Analyticator pugin, Google Analytics overview [8:08]
  • “Share and Follow “plugin (Social Media sharing) [20:04]
  • Facebook Comments [31:45]
  • Traffic Sources; PageRank; How Google sends you traffic; “low-hanging fruit” traffic strategies [39:58]
  • Meta-tags — how to find them; distinction between global and local site; Google places [50:04]
  • Keyword analysis — general strategy [64:07]
  • Market Samurai demo [70:57]
  • Using Yoast plugin to set meta-tags and generate XML sitemap [90:12]
Core Lecture

Core Lecture

 

Monthly webinar recordings (members-only)

TitleDescription
StudioPress / Genesis Theme Family Advanced Customization TutorialRecording of the webinar that took place in October 2011.  This is an advanced tutorial on customizing the StudioPress / Genesis theme family.
WordPress Webmaster Tools: FTP, Windows Live Writer, Moving WordPress sites with WP Clone, Sumo Paint, FirebugRecording of the webinar that took place in Sept 2011.